Best Startup
At Best Startup UK we track over 130,000 UK startups and over 500,000 people who hold key positions in these companies. We use this directory of startups to highlight top employees, founders and board members we think deserve more appreciation than they are currently getting.
This list showcases the top United Kingdom based Partner operating in the Internet space. If you think a Partner is missing from this list, feel free to contact our editor on editor@beststartup.co.uk.
The individuals on this list have been included because of exceptional performance in one of the following categories:
- Innovation – Operating as a key part in an extremely innovative business or startup.
- Growth – Operating as a key figure in the growth and upscale of a market leading business or startup.
- Management – Showing exceptional management skills.
- Societal impact – Putting their business on the map for their positive societal or environmental impact.
Our Data – We source our data from OSINT (open source intelligence) and public directories such as Companies House UK, Crunchbase, SemRush and many more. The data from these sources should be treated with a degree of caution and verified yourself.
Anna Gradil
Manager, YouTube Partnerships of YouTube
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About Yoola, Yoola, YouTube: YouTube is a video-sharing platform, allows users to upload, view, and share videos, including movie and music clips and amateur content.
Terri Scriven
Head of Creator Partnerships, Europe Middle East and Africa of YouTube
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About YouTube: YouTube is a video-sharing platform, allows users to upload, view, and share videos, including movie and music clips and amateur content.
Chris Klapwijk
Lead – Benelux Online YouTube Partnerships of YouTube
Chris Klapwijk is the Benelux Online YouTube Partnerships lead at YouTube since August 2014. Chris is responsible for new business development and growing existing key partners across all verticals (i.e. Music, Entertainment, Sport, News, Comedy, Beauty, etc) . Before joining YouTube, Chris worked as Manager of Accounts for Retail and Education on the Google EMEA sales team and has several years of TV and online media experience working for public TV broadcaster BNN. Chris was also a Manager of Accounts at Coolblue B. V. Chris earned his M.Sc. in Management of Innovation from RSM Erasmus Universiteit and B.Sc. in Business Administration and Management from Norwegian School of Economics.
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About YouTube: YouTube is a video-sharing platform, allows users to upload, view, and share videos, including movie and music clips and amateur content.
Katie Jenkins
Southern Europe Manager, YouTube Partner Development & Management of YouTube
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About YouTube: YouTube is a video-sharing platform, allows users to upload, view, and share videos, including movie and music clips and amateur content.
Dayo Olopade
Content Partnerships of YouTube
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About YouTube: YouTube is a video-sharing platform, allows users to upload, view, and share videos, including movie and music clips and amateur content.
Paulo Soares
Partner of YouTube
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About YouTube: YouTube is a video-sharing platform, allows users to upload, view, and share videos, including movie and music clips and amateur content.
Damian Benstead
Event Partnerships Manager of TechCrunch
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About TechCrunch: TechCrunch is an online magazine reporting on technology opinions, news, and analysis.
Denis Shafranik
Partner & Co-Founder of Concentric
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About Concentric, ERMAK Group, Supremum Capital: Concentric invests in software technology business in the financial services, mobility, real estate, industrial, and logistics sectors.
Kjartan Rist
Founding Partner of Concentric
Kjartan has spent the last 20 years working in the technology sector as a founder, advisor, board member, and investor. As a Founding Partner of Concentric, the London & Copenhagen-based venture capital firm, he works with early-stage tech businesses (Seed+ through Series B) to support their development and accelerate growth. Current investments include Airsorted, Huckletree, PayAsUGym, Pockit, Public.io, Digital Risks, Frontier Car Group, Insly, Memory.ai, Duedil, Coindirect etc. Concentric take a hands-on, founder focused approach to start-up investment and is passionate about strengthening the profile of the European Venture Capital sector. Prior to Concentric, Kjartan co-founded the venture fund DN Capital and the merchant bank Korral Partners, and have been instrumental in 70+ transactions. Kjartan graduated from the University of Bath and with an MBA from Imperial College London.
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About Concentric: Concentric invests in software technology business in the financial services, mobility, real estate, industrial, and logistics sectors.
H. Casper Ager-Hanssen
Partner & Head of Venture Capital of Custos Group
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About Custos Group, Custos Group: Custos creates a unique platform that targets world-beaters and tomorrow’s enterprising disruptive innovators.
Nick Wilsdon
Consultant – Vodafone Partner Markets of Vodafone
Nick Wilsdon joined Vodafone as Consultant in 2020.
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About Torque Partnership, Vodafone: Vodafone is a mobile telecommunications company that offers voice, messaging, and data services.
Michael Szalontay
General Partner of Flashpoint
Michael Szalontay joined Flashpoint Venture Capital as General Partner in 2010.
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About Flashpoint, Forbes Finance Council, IntelliBoard, QMENTA: Flashpoint is an international asset management firm investing in tech businesses.
Alexander Konoplyasty
General Partner of Flashpoint
Alexander Konoplyasty is the co-Founder at Flashpoint Group. Alexander Konoplyasty serves as Managing Partner Flashpoint Venture Capital. He co-founded an investment company focusing on start-up investments in Internet in CEE/Israel/CIS. He was Independent Financial Advisor for the sale of 100% in Ventrade; with Ivan Tavrin in 2010 and helped in the acquisition of a significant minority stake in Net-By-Net Holding in 2010 for debt/equity restructuring of OJSC RBC Information Systems, including restructuring of c. US$260 million of debt, sale of 51% stake for US$80 million to ONEXIM, sale of RBC Bank. Alexander Konoplyasty was Director and Associate in Investment Banking at UBS. He was coverage banker for media/telecom and financial services in the CIS and completed over 20 investment banking transactions in Russia and Ukraine. He was Investment Banking Analyst at Morgan Stanley in the European Telecom Media Technology group and the Leveraged Finance group. He was Consultant of Transaction Support at PricewaterhouseCoopers. Alexander Konoplyasty has wide experience of leading all types of corporate finance transactions: M&A, IPO, private placements, leverage buy-outs, raising and restructuring debt. He mostly acted as execution “deal captain”. Alexander Konoplyasty studied Advanced Bachelor of Arts (Specialist) in Economics from 1998 to 2003 from Moscow State University for International Relations (MGIMO).
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About Flashpoint: Flashpoint is an international asset management firm investing in tech businesses.
Donatella Callegaris
Managing Partner of Flashpoint
Donatella joined Columbia Lake Partners in 2014. She is involved in the entire deal life cycle including assessing, evaluating and post investment monitoring. Donatella is focused particularly on CLP relationships with the equity sponsors ecosystem and on identifying high growth technology companies in need of growth financing that best suits CLP’s investment criteria. Prior to joining CLP, Donatella spent seven years working at Kreos Capital, managing several aspects of the investment process on a pre-term sheet and post-term sheet basis as well as managing the portfolio for technology and life science companies based in the UK, continental Europe and Israel. Donatella also managed various levels of the fund corporate governance for Kreos II, Kreos III and Kreos IV funds. Prior to this, Donatella worked in trust management. She holds a degree in Business Management from Birkbeck College, University of London and speaks both Italian and English.
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About Flashpoint: Flashpoint is an international asset management firm investing in tech businesses.
Jon Carter
UK Innovation Scouting Lead, , Group Partnering & Devices of Deutsche Telekom
Jon leads Business Development for Deutsche Telekom’s white label and open connected home platform, with a specific focus on the UK market. Successfully launched in Germany in late 2013, Deutsche Telekom’s open platform is now available internationally, with a principle focus on Europe. Deutsche Telekom’s platform has been designed to move the industry beyond simple control of connected devices, to create a foundation for new revenue generating services. In the UK, Jon’s focus is on establishing partnerships with telcos, utilities, insurers and retailers, as well as third party platform providers and OEMs to enable the realization of innovative new models and revenue generating services. Jon has worked in and around the connected home space since the early 2000s, and has a deep knowledge of the UK and European market, and in particular what will finally drive growth in this market. He has previously consulted for both E.ON Group and RWE UK on their connected home strategies, including the latter’s partnership with Google’s Nest. Prior to joining Deutsche Telekom, Jon worked several years for a boutique innovation consultancy, and before that was 12 years at Orange, where amongst other things he led Orange UK’s R&D initiative on the connected home, as well as being Head of Strategy and subsequently Head of Propositions.
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About Deutsche Telekom: Deutsche Telekom is a telecommunications company that offers a range of fixed-network services.
Alessio Treglia
Head of EMEA Partnership of Tendermint
Alessio Treglia is the head of EMEA Partnerships at Tendermint.
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About Tendermint: Tendermint brings simplicity, security, and speed to the world’s blockchains.
Luke Ferris
Associate Partner ADAPT of Bain & Company
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About Bain & Company: Bain & Company is a management consulting firm that provides solutions on change in management, strategies, and technology.
Iain Jawad
Director Strategic Partnerships of Frost & Sullivan
Iain Jawad Director of Strategic Partnerships at Frost & Sullivan, a global growth partnership company.
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About Frost & Sullivan: Frost and Sullivan is a business growth consultation company focused on increasing brand demand.
Robert Dobson
Vice President, Technology Partners, and Product Marketing of Device Authority
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About Device Authority: Device Authority is a global leader in Identity and Access Management (IAM) for the Internet of Things (IoT) and Blockchain.
Rapheal Azrin
Authorized Technical Partner of MyRepublic
A real nut case whom was voted worst blogger of the year 2006,2007,2008 Non-US by IZEAS / PAYPERPOST community and the Affiliate Summit in London due to his bad attitude and no hands barred commentaries of the people who feeds him. Blogging for money to him must consist of integrity and such a case that comments and write ups must be from a fair point of view, without the censorship.
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About MyRepublic: MyRepublic is a telecom company that provides internet access and broadband-based services to consumers and businesses in Singapore.
Anthony Hess
Client Partner of MiQ
Anthony Hess is a Client Partner at MiQ.
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About MiQ: MiQ is an independent marketing intelligence company with the people and technology that help businesses win.
Tim Stone
Partner & Co-Founder of Breed Reply
Tim is one of the founding partners of Breed Reply, who are an active operational investor dedicated to early stage businesses in the Internet of Things. He leads the bespoke support programme to develop and accelerate the commercialisation of their growing portfolio of seventeen companies. His career started in sales and rapidly moved through to Executive roles covering all aspects of creating and operating a successful business. His key roles have ranged from Business Development Director, CCO and CEO in both corporate organisations and startups, with a focus on the Telecoms industry A thread throughout his career has been creating success through partnerships. In Vodafone Tim created from scratch the wholesale strategy, then executed this taking market share from 0 to 30%+ in less than three years. This success was delivered through the strategic development of major new brands. He has also seen a significant exit to a major operator from one his startup ventures.
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About Breed Reply, Graystone Strategy: Breed Reply is Europe’s active operational investors for early-stage companies delivering ‘internet of things’ solutions.
Gabriele Dini
Associate Partner of Breed Reply
Investment and corporate finance professional with track record in life sciences and technology, specializing in bridging innovation and finance. Solid technical expertise, with a MSc in engineering and experience in multinational academic and industrial environments, complemented by an MBA with focus on strategy and finance and a Masters in Finance. Strong knowledge of research, product development, and operations, enriched by a continuous interaction with corporate-level functions; extensive venture capital experience, from origination, to due diligence, deal structuring and strategic support to the entrepreneurs as in-house consultant and board member.
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About Breed Reply, Breed Reply: Breed Reply is Europe’s active operational investors for early-stage companies delivering ‘internet of things’ solutions.
Richard Hadden
Investment Director at Breed Reply and Partner of Breed Reply
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About Breed Reply: Breed Reply is Europe’s active operational investors for early-stage companies delivering ‘internet of things’ solutions.
Matt Cowey
Head Of Partnerships of spaceOS
Matt Cowey is the Head Of Partnerships at spaceOS. He is also the Commercial Manager at Flooring International UK.
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About spaceOS: SpaceOS is the most beautiful and easy to use tenant experience and management software on the market.
Ralph Bragg
Senior Partner of RAiDiAM
Ralph Bragg Senior Partner RAiDiAM Ralph’s career began at the London Stock Exchange, delivering cutting edge, ultra-low latency trading platforms before he was lured into investment banking. As Technical Architect at Societie General, Ralph crafted a globally distributed, mission critical pricing and execution platform for Retail and Professional Finance Clients supporting multiple Asset classes including FX, Fixed Income, Precious Metals and Semi Structured Products. Moving to the Royal Bank of Scotland in a senior role, Ralph led the IAM Architecture team. The team delivered a modern platform for RBS which ensured the business is able to quickly adapt and embrace transformative changes like PSD2 and the Open Banking initiatives. Ralph holds a Bachelor’s of IT degree from the Queensland University of Technology, (Australia) and is currently completing an MBA (Banking) at the University of London.
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About RAiDiAM: RAiDiAM consultants helps clients to create and execute IAM strategies that underpin digital transformation initiatives.
Ali Beklen
Founder and Managing Partner of HotelRunner
After working for several financial institutions and IBM, Ali Beklen co-founded HotelRunner with Arden Agopyan, with the ambition of converting the long-tail accommodation sales and distribution management from offline to online at global scale. For the last 10 years, he has been advising many organizations and initiatives focusing on digital transformation of the travel industry globally. He has publications in international refereed journals and conferences about service and cloud computing. He is Advisory Chair for Software Service Computation at the International Academy, Research and Industry Association. Beklen holds an M.Sc. in Computer Engineering and a B.A. in Economics. He is also a PhD candidate in computer engineering.
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About HotelRunner: SaaS enabled B2B network for accommodations and travel agencies to find, contract, connect, and transact with each other online.
Arden Agopyan
Founder and Managing Partner of HotelRunner
Arden Agopyan is an experienced entrepreneur and business development executive with a proven track record. Prior to founding HotelRunner, he led IBM’s Cloud Computing Software technical sales and market creation activities across Central and Eastern Europe, Russia, Middle East and Africa. His areas of expertise also include international team management, business execution, strategic marketing and financial management. As a talented hacker coming from software development background, along twenty years of business experience in technology, Arden is a Ph.D. candidate in Finance, holds a BSc in Computer Engineering degree and an MBA. Arden speaks five languages and is also Advisory Chair for Cloud Computing at International Academy, Research and Industry Association and co-author of a book, academic journals and articles.
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About HotelRunner: SaaS enabled B2B network for accommodations and travel agencies to find, contract, connect, and transact with each other online.
Jas Purewal
Partner of Purewal & Partners
Jas Purewal is a leading European eSports and digital entertainment lawyer and business advisor. He advises some of the world’s leading eSports teams, investors, and more. He also advises leading European game developers and businesses. After over a decade of legal practice, Jas founded Purewal & Partners, Europe’s first digital entertainment and tech law firm.
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About Purewal & Partners: Purewal & Partners is involved in digital entertainment tech, ranging from video games developers/publishers eSports businesses .
William Lebens
Founding Partner of Edge
Will is a founder and strategist @ DADI, a decentralised web services platform powered by blockchain technology. Previously Managing Director at multi-award-winning technology company Airlock and member of the Senior Management Council at Leo Burnett Group. I have been founding tech companies since 1998 (specialising in web services, content and data management) and was a Non-Executive Director for Symphony CMS. Specialities: business analysis & strategy, long term client relationships, big data, publishing and content management, emerging tech.
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About D_NO, Edge: Edge is a peer-to-peer network that offers decentralized web services.
Christopher Mair
Founding Partner of Edge
Chris is an internationally experienced digital strategist with specialist knowledge of publishing technologies.He is the key architect behind the decentralized business strategy @ DADI and holds responsibility for strategy & business development activities, including sales & marketing.
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About Edge: Edge is a peer-to-peer network that offers decentralized web services.
Lucia Mastromauro
Vice President, Global Head of Client Partnerships of Adform
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About Adform: Making display advertising simple, relevant, rewarding for advertisers, agencies and publishers
Talal Cheaib
Partner / Operations Director of Slidr
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About Slidr: SLIDR is a dynamic pricing technology allowing customers to buy products/services at prices always lower than retail
Ruth Mortimer
Managing Partner of Econsultancy
Ruth Mortimer is Managing Partner for Econsultancy, which provides digital transformation services through content, research, training, capability work and data. She was formerly the director of the award-winning Festival of Marketing and content director for Centaur Marketing, which comprises Marketing Week, Econsultancy, Festival of Marketing, Creative Review, Design Week, Celebrity Intelligence, Fashion/Beauty Monitor, Year Ahead and Foresight News. She is a PPA award-winning writer and author of five books on marketing. She is regularly asked to host events for brands such as Google and remains on the advisory board for the Festival of Marketing, which under her tenure, featured high profile figures such as Apple founder Steve Wozniak, 13 simultaneous stages, an awards scheme, a gig and a partner fringe programme.
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About Econsultancy: Econsultancy publishes research, analysis and advice on digital marketing, social media, e-commerce, SEO, mobile and tech for businesses.
Michael Edwards
Managing Partner & Co Founder of Inspire Group Investments
Michael Edwards is Managing Partner & Co Founder of Inspire Group Investments.
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About Inspire Group Investments: The Inspire Group is an integrated internet group of companies that prides itself in being there from the beginning.
Sam Crocker
Managing Partner of Bray Leino
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About Bray Leino: Back before anyone used the word ‘start-up’, Bray Leino did just that. Forty years ago we started up in North Devon
Abi Hemingway
Partner, Producer, and Director of jackshoot
Having produced live online content since 2001, Abi Hemingway has become a leading online live broadcast producer. Working with industry leaders Jackshoot TV, she has produced complex online broadcasts for leading brands including BAFTA, the Royal Opera House, British Fashion Council, the BRIT Awards, the FA, Harrods and MTV – covering fashion, gaming, sports, corporate and cultural events. With the team at Jackshoot, they are the go-to team for awards ceremonies. Abi has also worked extensively in live music broadcasts with well over a hundred live recordings with artists including Kings of Leon, Muse and Madonna. Abi has exec-produced a multi-platform live music TV series (Live at indigo2), a global live-stream for Michael Jackson and large online multi-site events including World Ballet Day for four years. Her expertise and experience runs the gamut from technical to creative and editorial through to commercial – and she prides herself on creating strong teams who can always deliver high quality work with a smile, even when under pressure.
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About jackshoot: jackshoot is a highly skilled & experienced team that capture & deliver their clients content to any digital platform,offers reliable price
Sophie Cohen
Executive Search Partner of Mitchellake Executive Search
Senior Executive Search / Head Hunter / recruitment professional with focus on high standard delivery. Passionate about digital and technology start-up and helping them acquiring the best talent for a healthy international growth or digital transformation. Experience in managing executive search, market intelligence, succession planning, salary surveys, talent mapping and pipeline projects across EMEA, North America, Russia, Asia Pacific (Australia, China, India, Philippines,..), UAE and LATAM. Broad sectorial experience in digital, advertising, marketing, media, pharmaceutical, industrial.
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About Mitchellake Executive Search: MitchelLake provides executive search, specialist recruitment and embedded talent solutions.
Maya Bogle
Founder and Head of Agency Partnerships of Talenthouse
Maya Bogle is one of the Founders of Talenthouse, a platform dedicated to developing creative talent around the World with the technology to become the largest source of creative solutions for brands. Talenthouse meets the rapidly growing demand amongst brand owners to deliver these solutions at speed, at scale, with cultural relevance and at competitive cost. Maya is championing this cause and has over 25 years experience in media. She speaks regularly at conferences including Cannes Lions, Social Media Week New York, AdWeek Europe, Crowdsourcing Week Singapore, the London F.ounders Conference, Tech City Insider, the Media Summit Manchester, Ibiza Music Video Festival, Silicon Beach EU, NOAH and numerous educational establishments.
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About Talenthouse: 14.6 million strong global creative community power leading brands globally
Iain Taylor
Partner of Ezone Interactive
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About Ezone Interactive: A web development agency specialising in developing great websites using WordPress, the most popular CMS available today.
Paul Richer
Senior Partner of Genesys Digital Transformation
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About Genesys Digital Transformation: Genesys Digital Transformation
Ahmet Salih Aktaş
Founding Partner of Sinematurk.com
Ahmet Salih Aktaş is the founding partner of Tripodi Asia Pacific and Sinematurk. He has a bachelor’s and a master’s degree from Middle East Technical University.
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About Sinematurk.com: Sinematurk.com is an entertainment website providing information, reviews, and critic views on latest movies and TV series.
Josh Burley
Managing Partner of WebDesires
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About WebDesires: Web Development, Hosting, SEO, Semantic Search
James Stewart
Partner and CTO of Public Digital
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About Public Digital: Public Digital is a digital transformation consultancy that helps organizations adapt to the internet.
